It’s funny really but as my enthusiasm for baseball came back with a vengeance, sitting down and writing about it seemed to take a back seat (“excuses, excuses†I hear you cry).
One of the things that has been and gone during my hiatus is the trading deadline. Tomorrow sets off the two-week countdown to the football transfer deadline (hopefully a period that will see one or two new players coming into Carrow Road with today’s sale of Robert Green, but enough of that!). There are many differences between the way football and baseball are run but the way in which baseball players can be traded without having any say in the matter (in all but a few cases) is difficult for Brits to get their heads round.
During the highlights for the Tigers game on the Daily Rewind today, Sean Casey popped up again with a big hit to help the Tigers in their march to the play-offs. Barely a month ago, Casey was “enjoying†his return home to Pittsburgh playing for the pitiful Pirates. At the whim of two GMs, Casey found himself moving from worst to first. Xavier Nady meanwhile had the dubious pleasure of seeing the situation from the other side of the equation. One moment you are riding the crest of the wave in New York looking ahead to a possible World Series, the next you are turning up at the ballpark everyday with nothing to play for except your own pride (and even the majestic beauty of PNC Park can’t be much of a comfort).
Baseball players, publicly at least, seem to accept that this is all “part of the businessâ€. In comparison to what Placido Polanco is going through right now I guess it’s not so bad. It was painful to watch the footage of him separating his shoulder against the Red Sox. Partly because of the sheer pain he must have been going through, but also because it would be such a cruel way to end a fairytale season. For both Polanco and the Tigers, let’s hope the injury doesn’t prove to be as serious as first thought and he can make a return during the play-offs.
